Abstract

This article identifies the author of an intriguing and unusual treatise on Ireland. The document, misleadingly entitled “Discourse for Reformacion of Ulster by Collonies, 1598”, offers a very important analysis of the legal position of Ireland Old English population at the close of the sixteenth century, and the internal evidence points to an author of Old English birth, living in London, and of very credible legal expertise. For these reasons, and several others, this article attributes the authorship of the discourse to Richard Hadsor (1570-1635), an Old English lawyer from Co. Louth and the “Solicitor for Irish causes” in London. By doing so, this study demonstrates that Richard Hadsor was not only a significant commentator on sixteenth-century Irish affairs, but that he was a remarkable representative of Ireland’s older colonial community because he had attained impressive status within English policy-making circles.